The entire time I’ve been on the race, I’ve lacked a certain amount of belief that I’m actually making a difference or that my actions are producing any fruit. For four months, I have been in anticipation of a miracle, seeing something happen that I knew could only be arranged by the Holy Spirit.
I was waiting for that big “something” that I came on the Race expecting to experience.
Then, my first week in Thailand, it happened. An event that could ONLY be coordinated by the Lord and that I could ONLY attribute to God and his sovereignty.
As a team, we had been praying for boldness and courage to do the things the Lord was asking of us, no matter if they seemed crazy in the eyes of the world. One morning, when meeting as a team, two of my teammates shared a vision God had given them to play worship music in Chiang Mai’s town square. God had told another teammate to speak in the square. Praise God for alignment and unity of visions.
So, that night we went out for dinner as a team and planned to head to the square to worship together afterwards. As we were leaving dinner, we noticed an intimidating storm rolling in. We hesitated. Should we still go to the square or seek shelter? We still felt a strong pull to go to the square, so we decided to sing as long as the storm allowed.
After the second song, a man came over and started listening to us. His name is Ron and he’s from Israel. Then, the storm really started to pick up making us move to the Starbucks across the street. We invited Ron to join us and he accepted. We took our worship to the third floor of Starbucks. When we got there, my teammate, Liz, felt an urge to invite the other customers in Starbucks to join us. She asked me if I wanted to go with her to invite people. My initial response was, “umm no, that’s super awkward and uncomfortable. What if they reject us?”.
That thought took me back:
**Upon coming on the Race, the themes I wanted the year to be marked by were the words ‘Big & Bold’. I wanted to live boldly and do big things for the Kingdom. After about a month on the Race, I realized that God had big plans in store for me, but I was allowing my fears and lack of trust in Him to hinder me from living those out. He made it clear that I had a choice; I could choose to follow Him down the path He laid out for me, or I could choose to go down my own path and forego the plans He had for me. Either way, God was not going to drag me down His path.
Back to present:
Liz asked me again to join her in inviting people. I realized that God was extending me an opportunity to go down His path; to be bold; to trust him, surrender my fears, and take a step of faith.
So, I joined Liz. The first person we invited said no. After that I said (in my head), ‘Liz will have to do all the talking, this is too uncomfortable.’ But, in the three seconds it took me to walk down the stairs, Jesus did a 180 in my heart, and suddenly I was approaching two college-aged girls inviting them to join us. And they said yes!
And so did five more people after that!
My teammates were shocked watching person after person, eight strangers in all, come grab a seat to join us for worship.
By the time I made it back upstairs, I had to take a step back and allow my mind to absorb the beautiful picture in front of me.
What I saw was the most unconventional, beautiful picture of church I’ve ever seen. It was a picture of the Global Kingdom with representatives from the US, China, Haiti, Israel, Indonesia and Thailand. And in the most unlikely of places, the third floor of a Starbucks (was told I’d never have coffee on the Race, not true).
Quickly, this group of fifteen strangers became united and connected through laughing and singing praises along to the ukulele.
And it only got better….
We found out that the two college-aged girls were in Thailand for a study abroad trip. They had just arrived the night before. One of them, Natanya, was a Christian and had been praying for two months prior that she would experience Jesus while in Thailand. Our invitation to her was an answer to her prayers. She thanked us for being bold enough to approach her and reassured us that it is worth it to be uncomfortable for a second if it means being obedient to God.
As soon as she said that, my fears dissolved. Suddenly, my fear and doubts seemed silly and irrational, and not worth even paying attention to compared to the glory and goodness that comes out of obedience and trust in Jesus.
Moral of the story is: we have a choice. I could’ve chosen not to go through Starbucks and invite people. I could’ve chosen to stay in my comfort zone. But, had I said no, I would’ve robbed people of the experience of encountering Christ that night, or having prayers answered. And I would’ve allowed myself to remain enslaved to fear and missed the opportunity to live in Jesus’ freedom!
What areas of your life could you be more bold in? What fears/doubts could you surrender to help you find freedom in life? What are ways you can get out of your comfort zone in order to show kindness and love to another person?
As my teammate Dakota would say: Shoot dang, God is good!
